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Sitting in a Bombardier Learjet 45 at California’s Palm Desert Airport near Palm Springs, tennis champion Novak Djokovic outlined the approach that has kept him at the top of the game and made him a hero in his native Serbia.

John Bingham, president and CEO of Piaggio America, is known for his directness and candor. He joined Piaggio in 2010 and has since overhauled the image of the brand while focusing on the Avanti's coolness factor.

After launching a successful high-tech startup–communication equipment manufacturer Shiva Corporation–Dan Schwinn turned his talents to fixing a glaring problem with the utility of small general aviation airplanes. The instrumentation available in the early 1990s on the typical single-engine aircraft was needlessly complicated, Schwinn felt. What aviation needed was a much simpler interface between the airplane and the pilot–something that presents information in a clear, easy-to-interpret manner and that promotes safety, rather than detracting from it.

Jackie Chan has a permanent hole in his head from a stunt accident and has been an emergency-room regular, but he continues to perform death-defying stunts to get the perfect shots for his action movies. A passionate advocate for realism in film, he insists that his fellow actors execute their own stunts, too–albeit while wearing plenty of padding. His later films include outtakes of his on-set accidents run under the closing credits. He cannot get insurance in the U.S.

When I first met PlaneSense founder and CEO George Antoniadis last October, I was struck by his effusive manner and passion for his fractional-aircraft-share company. During our recent interview at PlaneSense headquarters in Portsmouth, N.H., I saw another side of him: laser-focused, serious and smart.

Blair LaCorte, 49, brought a childhood passion for aviation to XOJet. He joined the company as president in 2009, was named interim chief executive officer in 2010, and one year later became the full-time chief executive officer.

International piano sensation Lang Lang grew up on a Chinese air force base where his father played in the military band. He doesn’t remember much about the airplanes there, but he does recall watching American television cartoons, with their animation often mated to classical music, and credits them for his desire to learn piano.

These days, Buzz Aldrin zips around on a JetSuite Embraer Phenom 100 instead of a NASA spaceship. While he is helping JetSuite promote its regional light jet charter service, he also finds that VLJs offer a convenient way to travel to speaking engagements and for space research projects and vacations.